


Once Upon a Time in the Past

by fredbassett



Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither Stephen nor Becker had expected to be celebrating a birthday in circumstances like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Time in the Past

Becker turned on his side and barely suppressed a grunt of pain as something sharp dug into his hip.

A bed of ferns didn’t do very much to improve the cold, hard floor of the cave. No matter how many times they tried to sweep out loose stones, the buggers always seemed to creep back. Becker was certain that specially trained infiltration pebbles lurked behind the bigger rocks and then crept out just as he was about to lie down, hiding in the fronds and leaves that made up his mattress, just waiting to jam themselves into his hip or his shoulder or his arse…

Oh shit, he was anthropomorphising the fucking rocks again.

Becker grunted and turned over again, checking the time on his watch. He’d been asleep for almost the allotted four hours and it was now 2am. It was his turn to do sentry duty at the cave entrance, tending the fire and keeping watch for anything that might be on the lookout for easy pickings. And in their real life Jurassic fucking Park there was no shortage of things that looked on human beings as a nice tasty appetiser.

Stifling a groan, he sat up. “My turn,” he said to a dark shape silhouetted again the moonlit sky, sitting in the entrance to their small cave, otherwise known as Home, Sweet Home. 

“Go back to sleep,” Stephen said quietly. “I’m not particularly tired, so you may as well get another couple of hours’ kip. I’ll wake you up if I start nodding off.”

Stephen had an enviable ability to survive on very little sleep, and whilst Becker had a soldier’s knack of being able to sleep practically any time, anywhere, if he was being entirely honest – which he tried not to be, most of the time – he would be forced to admit that he was bloody desperate for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Becker failed to suppress a yawn. “Thanks. I’ll do the same for you tomorrow.” 

He’d been stuck in the past with Stephen for six weeks and during that time he’d come to trust the other man as much as he’d trusted his fellow soldiers. If Stephen said he wasn’t tired, then Becker believed him. To argue the toss was unthinkable now.

He settled down again, his head resting in the crook of his arm. The nights were chilly, but the fire provided some warmth, and the bed of ferns kept out some of the chill from the floor of the cave. As he drifted off to sleep, he watched Stephen’s long-fingered hands toying with a piece of wood he’d been carving for the last week or so. They’d both taken to whittling wood to keep themselves awake during the night watches. Stephen had started first, and Becker had followed suit. He wasn’t as good with his hands as Stephen, but he was a fast learner. He’d even tried his hand at basket-weaving, and if any of his men learned that, Becker would never fucking live it down. Despite that, he was actually pretty proud of the fish trap he’d made and, much to his surprise, the ugly fuckers they’d managed to catch actually tasted better than they looked – although, in the interests of accuracy, that wouldn’t be difficult.

Becker closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift back into sleep.

* * * * *

Stephen glanced over his shoulder at his sleeping companion. At rest, in spite of the short beard he was now sporting, the special forces captain looked absurdly young. During the day, Becker’s hard-edged competence put several years on his actual age, but in sleep all that was smoothed away, leaving him looking strangely vulnerable.

Despite the time they’d been stranded together, Stephen didn’t really feel he knew the man. Becker had been brought onto the project after Stephen had nearly died at the tooth and claws of a room full of things straight out of a nightmare. As a result, the powers that be had finally accepted that Ryan couldn’t be everywhere at once, and some extra men had been drafted in, together with a fresh-faced officer straight out of Selection. For the first few months of his recovery, Stephen had barely come into contact with the new captain, but once he’d been allowed back to the ARC – albeit confined to a desk – they’d had some dealings with each other, mainly united in exasperation at Cutter, and had struck up a tentative friendship.

It hadn’t gone further than the occasional drink after work, usually in company with others from the team. They had a mutual interest in shooting, although Stephen preferred something with a little more precision that Becker’s beloved combat shotgun, and they worked well together when Stephen was finally cleared for field work.

Although the distance that had grown up between Stephen and his old friend and mentor had been swept away by Stephen’s attempted atonement, they hadn’t quite fallen back into their old ways yet, and with the team’s growth, Stephen had found himself working more with Becker, leaving Ryan to stand no nonsense from Cutter. It had worked well, giving Stephen and Cutter time to find their feet again, and the space to rediscover their friendship. 

And they certainly had plenty of time and space between them now. 

Something in the region of 150 million years, but who was counting? Stephen and Becker had become trapped when they’d been fighting a rearguard action against a pair of hungry allosaurus to allow the rest of the team to evacuate a group of cyclists who had come in for a few surprises on what should have been an early morning trip along a canal towpath. They’d survived, but the anomaly had closed. So the team would be short-handed again, leaving Stephen and Becker to survive as best they could, and hope for an anomaly that would take them home.

Stephen turned his attention back to the piece of wood in his hands. He liked taking the time to make something and what he’d been working on for the past week was nearly finished now. Providing nothing came to disturb them, he’d have it finished by morning.

* * * * *

For once, Becker came slowly out of a deep sleep, feeling better rested than he’d been in weeks. He’d been vaguely conscious of hearing the sound of rain sometime in the early morning, but had been able to turn over and go back to sleep again, secure in the knowledge that Stephen was still keeping watch at the entrance.

Sunlight slanted into the cave, and sparkled on the overhanging fern fronds, fizzing slightly as the occasional drop landed on the hot embers of the fire. The world had taken on that newly-washed look that Becker always enjoyed. He stretched the kinks out of his back and joined Stephen.

“Thanks for last night,” he said. “I’ll return the favour when you need it.”

Stephen smiled at him. “You’re welcome. You looked all in.”

“I was.” He sat down side the fire and warmed his hands over the flickering flames. As soon as the sun started to rise higher in the sky, the temperature would rapidly mount, but for now there was a distinct chill in the air.

Stephen used a stick to pull some roasted nuts out of the embers of the fire and pushed some towards him. They were a good source of protein, and were relatively plentiful, so they’d laid in quite a stock, and had taken to having them roasted for breakfast. He juggled the fat brown nut in his hands before cracking the shell and taking out the warm, sweet centre. As breakfasts went, he’d certainly had worse.

“This morning’s storm will have brought a good few of these down,” Stephen commented. “I’m going to have a go at grinding them up to see if I can make some sort of flatbread out of them.”

“Bloody hell, that’s a bit Delia!” But the thought of eating something resembling bread made Becker’s mouth water. There really was only so much wind-dried raptor or baked ugly fish that anyone could eat without longing for a change.

Stephen reached behind him and took a leaf-wrapped object off a rock and handed it to Becker. “Sorry I couldn’t bake you a cake, but happy birthday anyway.”

Becker took the small package but instead of opening it immediately, he grabbed his pack, and took out something he’d spent time making. “Sorry it’s not wrapped,” he said. “But I’m a bit crap at this sort of thing. And happy birthday to you, too.”

Stephen’s vivid blue eyes lit up with delight at the gift. Becker had spent the last two weeks on his own night watches carving a piece of dinosaur bone into a small, barbed harpoon. The pattern he’d carved on the bone was basic in the extreme, but he’d been pleased with what he’d managed to achieve, and it was clear that the present had both surprised and touched his companion. It would need mounting on a spear, but they had several of those in various stages of manufacture.

While Stephen was turning the piece of carved bone over in his hands admiringly, Becker carefully unwrapped his own present. The fern fronds fell away to reveal a small wooden horse’s head, set on a round, flat base. They’d taken to whiling away the long dark evenings by playing games of chess, using different-sized pebbles for chessmen, but at some point Stephen had clearly decided to start making one of Becker’s favourite pieces. The little head had come to life in Stephen’s skilled hands, looking like a small version of one of the Elgin marbles that Becker remembered admiring on a long ago school trip to the British Museum.

“At least we won’t have to buy cakes for every bugger in the office,” Becker said, not knowing quite how to go about expressing his thanks for the gift, but hoping his smile of genuine pleasure at the sight of the carving had been enough. 

A shared birthday had been one of the few personal facts they’d discovered about each other after a post-anomaly curry one night. Becker just hadn’t expected to celebrate it over a breakfast of roasted nuts in the Jurassic. 

Stephen smiled at him. “I never did like big parties. Fancy going fishing and then playing a game of chess?”

Becker grinned. “Sounds like the perfect way to spend a birthday.”


End file.
